Grand deZions

Our last stop on the “Grand Circle” loop was 3 days at Zion National Park. We think we saved the best til last – it’s a really beautiful park with spectacular peaks lining a narrow canyon. We had a great apartment with a fantastic view, right on the edge of the park. We finally had the chance for a home cooked meal which allowed for portion control rather than meal servings big enough to feed the five thousand. Can’t believe that I am excited about cooking!

On our first day we caught the National Park shuttle bus through Zion Canyon, getting off at various points for some walks. Zion walks are either easy-peasy or incredibly strenuous involving perilous narrow edges. We stuck to easy-peasy for the first day. The weather was pretty marginal with intermittent thunderstorms and hail, a quick dive for cover was needed on a couple of occasions when the rumble was a little too close for comfort.

Court of the Patriarchs

Emerald Pools

Start of the Narrows, a slot canyon only wide enough for the river. Really cold, and with thunderstorms about, not really a good idea to tackle.

Zion being Tourist-Central, competition was stiff in the “Most Inappropriate Hiking Footwear” contest. The fact that the tracks were wet and muddy added an extra dimension. The nominations are (in no particular order):

1.       Crocs – in a variety of colours including hot pink

2.       Smooth-soled leather dress shoes

3.       Red pointy toed ‘pixie’ boots (worn by a male) with laces artfully loosened and undone, seen on a very steep downhill trail

4.       Thongs

5.       Socks and sandals – several sub-categories here. Socks appeared to be uniformly white (until they got to the muddy bits that is)

a.       Adventure sandals (eg Teva, Keen)

b.      Homy-ped and similar orthopaedic sandals favoured by elderly women

c.       German sandals – you know what I mean

d.      Flowery dressy sandals with a heel

The winner was a young man demonstrating the complete ensemble of beige slacks, grey suit jacket, leather dress shoes and to top it all off……… a green zip-through cardigan 2 inches too short so that  we were treated to a fine display of pale, fleshy roly-poly tummy fat. (Be still my beating heart…)

On day 2 we travelled to the western side of the park for a lovely walk along a stream that we crossed 84 times (yes I counted!). We ended up at the end of a canyon with a huge arch and cave.  On the way to this part of the park, we passed through the town of Virgin (not many people live here) and pondered the irony of the Virgin “Used Goods Store.”

Taylor Creek Trail. 

One of the major walks in Zion is the Angel’s Landing trail – the last part of the walk involves a precipitous walk clinging to chains on the edge of a 1400 ft drop. We didn’t want to meet any angels today so only walked to Scouts Lookout which is a steep walk to the bottom of the Angel’s Landing bit. That was way good enough for me to earn my ice-cream for the day – no need to scare myself silly on edges.

Start of the Angel trail, really steep, but wheel chair accessible!

Where the Angel Trail really kicks off from Scouts lookout. 

After leaving Zion, we headed back to the madness of Las Vegas to return the hire car – suitably filthy by now – do some laundry and get an early night in preparation for our flight to Chicago. Some folks have all the fun! On our way out for dinner we were disappointed to see Spiderman going up in a glass elevator – why wasn’t he scaling the outside of the building???